Chapter 19: Murderer

"Things have changed, Georgy-boy," the familiar voice in George Torch's head taunted him. "Your girl don't respect you no more. Probably she never did, but she feared you. And she trusted you in some sick, twisted way. She was yours. But she's not anymore-- she's not scared of you now, she's doesn't love you now, and she definitely don't trust you now! You showed your hand way too early-- way she figures there's nothing worse you can do to her that hasn't already been done, and she's right, she's totally right. You fucked up. You sold out your little girl for what, job security? Ha, ha!

"You blew it all to keep a job you fucking hate!" the voice continued. "And now she hates you. She's a total slut, just like you always said, but she's given up on wanting anything more. And when a person don't want nothing, they don't fear nothing. Hell, you even tried and took her money, and she just shrugged it off! She'll fuck for her money, now, George! She said so herself! Your little girl has totally given up, and now she's just a little whore, just some plumbing to sell to assholes like your boss..."

"Shut the fuck up!" George yelled out loud. He was alone in his truck.

"Oooo, strike a nerve?" the voice, louder than ever, continued. "Don't like thinking about how you sold her out to your asshole boss, a guy you knew was twisted and fucked up? Don't like thinking you could do that, even to a stupid fucking slut like your daughter? That you could teach her how to be a whore?"

"Quiet, I'm thinking, shut UP!" he screamed again. George was snaking his truck down the late afternoon roads of outer Cleveland and his fists were clenching the steering wheel tightly. Images of his little girl, lying in her pretty pink bed so passively just moments before, repeated through his head.

"I'll fuck you for free, still," his daughter had told him.

He almost growled at the recollection. Things hadn't turned out the way he'd wanted. He'd wanted to teach his daughter on how to be a "good" slut, a good, obedient piece of cunt. Instead he'd shattered her entirely when he'd sent her to see his boss. But why? What had happened? His boss must have done something horrible to the girl.

"Oh yeah?" the voice in his head mocked. "So it has to be that tub-of-shit's fault, right? Not yours for sending her to him? You're pathetic, George. You blame everyone but yourself."

"Shut up, motherfucker," George grunted through clinched teeth as he cut off some SUV driving son-of-a-bitch.

"Face it," the thoughts continued, "you're to blame for all of this. Amy might be a slut but a lot of teeny-girls are. Most of those girls grow up, too! They end up having good lives! But you, you? You got horny, you wanted to fuck someone, and you decided to fuck your own flesh and blood! And then you betrayed her. You sold her out to your fucking degenerate, asshole boss. And you never acted like a real father, never acted like a real man, you never acted like a real PERSON ever would!"

"Oh yeah?" George growled as he cut over two lanes toward his exit to Twinsburg.

Gritting his teeth, George hissed, "Maybe not. Shit, maybe not... maybe not before."

Glancing over at the gun in the passenger seat of his truck, George almost smiled. "Better late than never."

George sat in the bay window overlooking the nice, calm suburban street of his boss's neighborhood. Between two trembling fingers he held a lit cigarette. It'd been years since he'd smoked, since the war, actually. But he needed one right now and they'd been available.